


A House Made of Trees

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-06
Updated: 2005-12-06
Packaged: 2019-01-19 14:06:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12411756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: She lives at the end of a five and half minute hallway.  She knows this because she measured the time of her steps.





	A House Made of Trees

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**Title:** A House Made Of Trees [ I / I ]  
 **Author:** **_carondelet_** // **_carondelet11_**  
 **Character(s) / Pairing:** Luna Lovegood  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Word Count:** 1,290  
 **Spoilers:** Books 1-5  
 **Summary:** She lives at the end of a five and half minute hallway. She knows this because she measured the time of her steps.  
 **Notes:** originally published 13 June 2005 // 1308  
 **Author's Notes:** very much inspired by another fan author, RFletcher. Luna is the original Girl, Anachronism.  
 **Disclaimer:** This story is based on characters, settings, and situations created and owned by J.K. Rowling as published by, including and not limited, to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books, Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. The use of these characters and settings is for entertainment purposes only; no infringement is intended or should be inferred.

 

**_____________________________________**

**A HOUSE MADE OF TREES**

[] DAS NICHT ZU HAUSE SEIN

**_____________________________________**

 

**Sometimes she wishes** they would all just stop paying attention to her.

But where’s the merriment in that? she reminds herself.

She’s not the most careful of girls. It’s through no fault of her own. The scars on her hands and fingers, she’s clumsy, she’s all thumbs, she’ll tell them this.

She’ll tell anyone who’ll listen.

But they don’t seem to notice. Not for the corks around her neck or the radishes that she wears or her wand behind her ear.

It’s better this way, she supposes.

No one sees the bumps on her knees, the scratches on her books, the scuffs on her shoes.

She’s not the most careful of girls.

No one ever sees her stumble or fall. Most of the time, she doesn’t even see it.

Once, she had a mark on her hand that was the size of a galleon. It changed colour over the course of the day. It fascinated her. She did not know wherefrom she obtained such a discolouration, but its many moods were intriguing.

It was upset, and then it was angry, and then it was sad, and then it was embarrassed, frightfully so, and then it was gone. She liked it. She was quite proud of it. It turned colours like the leaves on the trees in the autumn.

Pinkish red tinged with yellow deepened to blackish blue and greenish tint that shifted to a pale orange hue.

She spilled a glass of pumpkin juice on the floor in the Great Hall this morning. This time, she didn’t break the glass. It spun and whirled and made interesting patterns on the stone floor. She saw stars and owls and moons in the orange-silver liquid.

She wears a piece of string, tied round her wrist. It’s a different string every day as the string it keeps on breaking. She can’t help it, it unravels and falls apart.

The school is so large and is so full of life. It astounds and enchants her, the differences, the swirl of tempers and experiences and skills and prejudices. So many, varied, singular, to be amongst the brilliance of their individuality was consuming. She is amazed that she somehow stands apart from them when they themselves are so wonderful.

How can they not see their own exceptionality? she marvels.

Some of the most vibrantly distinct concern themselves with the shedding of their personality for sake of slinking into the boring commonplace of every day grey. She frowns and shakes her head. She will never understand such thinking. She feels sorry for them and wishes them well in their misbegotten quests.

At night, she always looks as though she’s shaking, as though it’s just too cold for her. She doesn’t mind the temperature. She likes it cold and even colder. She’ll tell them this.

It’s just that hardly anyone ever asks.

She lives at the end of a five and half minute hallway. She knows this because she measured the time of her steps. To her, it is important to make note of such things. She sees the value inherent and recognises that some day this knowledge will come in useful.

She seems much younger than her age, so her source of tranquillity is not so readily explained away. “Older”� seems to excuse the calmness she exhibits. She never tells anyone how old she really is — she doesn’t think that they would believe her.

On occasion, she thinks to herself that it’s not the way she’s supposed to be. But her consistency has made her reliable. Her oddity has become a reassurance.

She doesn’t mind it. She likes being depended upon, regardless of circumstance. It’s nice. It feels good. Her father relies upon her, has done so since mother’s experiment.

She doesn’t mean to be strange. It’s just the way the accident made her.

She knows that some look upon her with disdain. She knows that some whisper that she has issues, some of which she has to work through, or should, in the least.

She thinks that she is fine. She thinks that her way isn’t something she needs to change. If she did so, she would be pretending to be you. She likes the layers of make-believe. It is harmless and helpful in the same act. It guards the soul, the one just beneath the surface of things fantastic and absurd.

She’s never been concerned in trying to convince anyone that she is intelligent and gifted. If anyone ever thought such things of her, it was accidentally on purpose.

She doesn’t find fault in her lack of being serious. If she ever spoke serious words or took a sombre mien, it would be plagiarism.

She knows that it is necessary to join the others, her classmates, her friends, in their reality, but she does so only on a rare occasion, and only as a dubious guest.

She floats among them, and in doing so she knows that they do not see the red in her eyes.

She doesn’t mind.

They do not notice the bruises. She prefers that they didn’t. Sometimes she doesn’t like so many questions.

She knows that some of them will think, if they did take notice, that she’s not right at all. She knows that some will think, _ah, there she goes again. Pretending that she’s fallen. We’ve seen this before from her. Just let her be. The attention just encourages her._

She doesn’t pretend to fall or to bump into things. She doesn’t even remember how she gains her scrapes and her contusions.

She’s not the most careful of girls. That’s all.

She does wonder if they don’t take notice because they would be sorry that they asked.

Perhaps they think that she might be catching. _Don’t talk to her, soon you might start to believe that nargles are infesting the mistletoe._

Perhaps they think that she doesn’t realise how much is at stake. Even after the Department of Mysteries. She knows that the current state is critical.

But why change? To her, it’s the little things, after all, that help her through the day. Why make up ten excuses when she can just sit and watch the balletic movement of the giant squid of the lake? Why ask for the others to please excuse her for her manner, it's just the way her childhood made her...? No, she would much rather go snipe-watching than to bother with such pretences.

She knows that some wonder if there is a cure for her unusual behaviour. Which is why, on those occasions varied and few, she joins in with them. Her presence is precarious, but she does not mind one whit. She is there and that is what is important, not whether or not she is wearing a garland of wild garlic on her head.

She thinks that it is pretty. Slender green, pale lavender, sunshine yellow, too.

No one asks her. She knows that they don’t have to. They have come to take such interests for granted. She likes this. She likes how quietly accepting some of them have become.

She sometimes wishes that they would all stop paying attention to her. But she doesn’t mind. Not in the least. She is fond of their world and their ways and thinks that one day she won’t leave it. Instead, she will stay and build for herself a house made of trees, so she can see the leaves colour and turn when the chill creeps into the air.

One day she will stay. Just not today. Not when there are people made of boredom and cities made of music yet for her to visit.

And not as long as there is the Blibbering Humdinger or the Crumple-Horned Snorkack to keep track of.

 

**”**


End file.
